232 LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



true Tyrant-birds, Irat differs from them in language, its various chirping and 

 twittering notes having a hard, percussive sound, which Azara well compares to 

 the snapping of castanets. It prefers open situations, with scattered trees and 

 bushes, and is also partial to marshy grounds, where it takes up a position on an 

 elevated stalk to watch for insects, and seizes them in the air, like the Flycatcher. 

 It also greedily devours elderberries and other small fruits. 



"The nest is not deep, but is much mwre elaborately constructed than is 

 usual with the Tyrants. Soft materials are preferred,, and in many cases the 

 nests are composed almost exclusively of wool. The inside is cup-shaped, with 

 a flat bottom, and is smooth and hard, the thistle down with which it is lined 

 being cemented with gum. The eggs are four, sharply pointed, light cream 

 color, and spotted, chiefly at the large end, with chocolate. In the breeding 

 time these Tyrants attack other birds approaching the nest with great spirit, and 

 and have a particular hatred to the GMmango, pursuing it with the greatest vio- 

 lence through the air, with angry notes, resembling in sound the whetting of a 

 scythe, but uttered with great rapidity and emphasis. How greatly this species 

 is imposed upon by the Cow-bird, notwithstanding its pugnacious temper, we 

 have already seen in my account of that bird. 



"The Scissor-tails have one remarkable habit; they are not gregarious, but 

 once every day, just before the sun sets, all the birds living near together rise to 

 the tops of the trees, calling to one another with loud, excited chirps, and then 

 mount upward like rockets to a great height in the air; then, after whirling 

 about for a few moments, they precipitate themselves downward with the 

 greatest violence, opening and shutting their tails during their wild zigzag flight, 

 and uttering a succession of sharp, grinding notes. After this curious perform- 

 ance they separate in pairs, and, perching on -the tree tops, each couple utters 

 together its rattling castanet notes, after which the company breaks up." 1 



Mr. George K. Cherrie, in his List of Birds of San Jose, Costa Rica, speaks 

 of this species as follows: 



"Resident, but much more abundant at some seasons than at others — that 

 is, immediately after the breeding season (from the latter part of April until the 

 first of July) they become quite common about the suburbs of the city, and 

 remain so until the middle of December. 



"At a slightly lower altitude it nests abundantly. A nest with three fresh 

 eggs, taken by Don Anastasio Alfaro at Tambor, Alajuela, May 2, 1889, was 

 placed in a small tree, about 10 feet from the ground. The parent bird left the 

 nest only very reluctantly and not until almost within the grasp of the col- 

 lector. The nest is constructed of a mixture of small dry grass and weed stems 

 and soft dry g-rass, rather compactly woven together, with a lining of a few fine 

 rootlets. It measures outside 5 inches in diameter by 2§ deep; inside, 2 J in 

 diameter by 2\ deep. The eggs are white, sparsely spotted and blotched, chiefly 

 about the larger end, with chestnut of slightly varying shades. In form the 



1 Argentine Ornithology, Vol. I, pp. 160, 161. 



